Thursday, July 11, 2013

Interview with Samantha Durante

Samantha Durante lives in Westchester County, New York with her husband, Sudeep, and her cat, Gio. Formerly an engineer at Microsoft, Samantha left the world of software in 2010 to pursue her entrepreneurial dreams and a lifelong love of writing. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology, Samantha is currently working full time for her company Medley Media Associates as a freelance business writer and communications consultant. The Stitch Trilogy is her debut series.

__________________________________________

Thank you so much for
joining me, Samantha! I’m so excited to be a part of the SHUDDER blog tour!

I’m very excited to be joining you, Komal, thanks so much
for hosting me!

For those unfamiliar
with the Stitch trilogy, could you briefly tell us a bit about it?

Sure! Stitch starts
out seeming like a college ghost romance, but it’s got a big sci-fi twist that
lands the characters in a disturbing future dystopia. The second book, Shudder, is more grounded in
dystopian territory, but it’s got some interesting paranormal additions to keep
it fresh and different. And I can’t tell
you much about the third book, because I haven’t written it yet!

Stitch was a skillful
cross between the paranormal, science fiction, and dystopian genres. I expected
Shudder to solely focus on Dystopian, but was surprised when it drifted into
the paranormal genre once again. What is your favourite part about crossing
genres in this unique way?

Blending genres for me is a way to bring something
different to the table. I LOVE dystopian
books, but let’s face it – there are a lot of popular ones out there right now,
and the last thing I wanted to do with Shudder was rehash the same old tropes
and storylines. I thought the additional
of some paranormal elements would help the book to be unique and hold readers’
interest, even if they’re burned out on straight-up dystopian reads.

Stitch had a huge twist
towards the end that no one saw coming. When you went into writing Shudder, did
you have any idea how you were going to outdo the twist in the first book?

That had to be the hardest thing about writing Shudder –
how was I EVER going to outdo the genre-bending twist in Stitch?? In the end, I couldn’t think of a way to do
it without going off the deep end and turning the series into like a cowboy
space opera or something ridiculous, so I decided instead to just focus on
making Shudder a really strong story and trying to avoid the dreaded “second
book syndrome.” I wanted to use this
book to expand upon the foundations that were laid in Stitch, answer readers’
questions about the world-building, and continue to develop the characters,
with a healthy dose of action and romance thrown in to keep the story moving. I was able to bring in a *few* big twists
this time (my favorite being the jaw-dropper in Alessa’s last chapter – sorry,
I’m a sucker for cliffhangers!), so hopefully those will tide readers over
until we can really kick things up in the conclusion of the series.

You presented many
interesting ideas in Shudder, but what really resonated with me were your views
on over-population. What were you hoping that your readers would take away from
the story?

You know, I don’t really have a good answer on how to
address the issue of over-population (and being someone who would eventually
like to have 4 kids, I’m certainly in no position to preach to anyone to about
population control! lol). But I can very easily see our world going the
same route as the one in Stitch, where eventually just too many people
competing for resources is going to have massive, planet-threatening
consequences, and it’s really scary to think about that happening. I guess the message here is that we all need
to take a collective step back and look at what we’re doing and try to come up
with some solutions, rather than forging blindly ahead until it’s too late
(much like we’ve done with global warming…).

Could you tell us
something about Stuck, the final book in the trilogy?

Things are going to get shaken up in a massive way for
Alessa and the gang, and they’re going to have to find a different way of
accomplishing their goals than they originally thought. That’s all I’m going to say for now. :-)

What was it like
writing a sequel? Was it easier or harder than writing book one?

I thought writing Shudder was actually a lot easier than
writing Stitch. All of the hard parts –
the backstory, the character introductions, the world building – are out of the
way, so you can really focus on the fun parts and on making the world you
created richer. It was great to just set
Isaac and Alessa loose and see where things went.

How much planning do
you do before you write your novel? Or do you just go with it and see where the
story takes you?

I do a TON of planning.
I literally do not write even a sentence until I have the entire story
plotted out and a completed chapter-by-chapter outline that I feel fairly
satisfied is 90% of the way there. The
remaining 10% I allow to develop as I’m writing, since sometimes ideas will
occur to me or I’ll begin to see a development in a character that I didn’t
notice before which is worth expanding on.
But in general, writing is the easy part – when I sit down to write, I
already know where the story is going, so I just need to get the words out and
try not to make too many typos along the way!

What are you currently
reading?

I’m actually knee-deep in parenting/pregnancy/birthing
books, since I’m six months along with my first, and (like with my writing…) I
like to be prepared and have some plans in place before I jump into
things. But once I finish those off, I
have a list of great new sci-fi books plus a few compelling YA/NA
contemporaries – many of which are from other awesome indie writers (cough,
Falling for Hadie, cough, cough) – that I’m dying to crack open. :-)

Do you have any other
projects in the works? What can we expect from you after the conclusion of the
Stitch trilogy?

Nothing in the works right now beyond Book 3 (besides this
baby, haha!), but once the Stitch Trilogy is released, I do have a bunch of
ideas for potential stand-alone YA/NA sci-fi novels that I’m really excited
about! I’ll be sure to keep readers up-to-date
on my blog/social media as plans cement…

Is there anything you
would like to say to your readers?

THANK YOU for all of your enthusiastic support of the
Stitch Trilogy! I never expected people
to be so receptive to my work, and I feel enormously grateful for each and
every person who’s picked up one of my books.
:-) Also, stay tuned tomorrow on
the Shudder tour for
more BAD GUY WEEK and themed posts about your favorite Stitch villains!

About Komal

Komal Kant is the author of IMPOSSIBLE, FALLING FOR HADIE, and the upcoming WRONG SIDE OF TOWN.
Komal is overly enthusiastic about video games, comic books, Byronic heroes, baking, reptiles and pretty shoes.